How Do We Know It's A Win?

Last night I got the pleasure of opening my home up to a Cubs fan so they could watch the game and the Cubs lost. Good times, good times. A win is very easy to define in baseball. There's something called a final score. Last night the final score was 6-0 in favor of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The scoring in baseball is called, runs, and whoever has the most wins the game. The same is true in basketball and football with points and in hockey with goals. In golf it's a little different, because the lowest score wins. When you play Monopoly you count up your assets...money and properties...and you know you've won if you have the most. In racing...car, horse, human...it's whoever gets to the finish line first that wins. It's all pretty clear-cut.

But how do you know you are winning at life?

Maybe it's the one with the most toys. Maybe it's the person who has the larger number in their bank account. Maybe it's the person who owns the most land. Maybe it's the best looking person or the most famous. Maybe it's the person with the most power or the highest political office.

At youth group we've gone through a series of videos called, I Am Second. These are video testimonials by many famous people. Some are Olympic athletes, professional athletes, coaches, actors and actresses, musicians, fighters, models, and other more common people. There seems to be a pattern in most every video I've watched and I've watched several. First of all, there's the attempt at winning. They want to be successful, they want to be happy, so they pursue what they think will make them happy. Many of these people on these videos have acheived amazing levels of sucess. There are gold medals, big record deals, championships, TONS of money and fame...these people became a big deal. Secondly, they found out that they were unhappy. The lure of all the earthly stuff, both clearly sinful and not, was too much. The promise of happiness was too much and they fell for it. They were miserable. They were discontent. They were depressed and sad. Thirdly, they found that when they gave their lives to God they were truly happy. Their relationship with God brought them peace. They felt a sense of joy that they never had.

A win in life is a little more mysterious. We have so many voices coming our way telling us what a win looks like. In baseball it's so simple, score more runs, in life it's just not this clear-cut. Well, it's not until you open up the Bible.

In Ecclesiastes 2 Solomon goes on a journey to discover what a win is. This is what he writes in Ecclesiasts 2:1, "I said to myself, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." What Solomon was saying was, "Let's discover what a win in life really looks like." So he attained everything you could imagine...women, alcohol, money, servants, bands...if you can think of it he got it. Then when he looked at his life he described his pursuit as a "chasing after the wind." (Eccl. 2:11)

Here is what he discovered a win really was. A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? (Eccl. 2:24-25)

Here is Billy's translation of what he discovered was a win.

1. Enjoy the simple things in life. Be happy you have food and drink...enjoy it. Enjoy your work. Enjoy the people you are around. Enjoy your family, your friends, your neighbors. It's all about people anyway.

2. Love and serve God. A relationship with God gives meaning and purpose to everything. You won't really enjoy anything in life for any amount of time if you don't have your relationship with God right.

A win in life may appear to be a whole lot harder to define than a win in baseball. But when we stop to consider the wisdom of Solomon it's really not that tough.